Recently someone asked me: how did you unblock your memories? I would like to do that. I think I am ready.

This is a great question!

It was totally through the grace of God. Every year of my son’s life, brought back everything that happened to me at the same age. I don’t recommend it as an approach, since I had to live through it twice, at the expense of his childhood!

At the time, I had a very gifted therapist, who explained that memories come back 4 ways. It’s called the BASK model. It looks something like this:

Behaviour: Sometimes you react to things in a way which is out of proportion to the situation – the classic one is a Vietnam vet diving for cover when a car backfires. Tonight, for me, I reacted in a way that was over the top when I saw a child at the dinner table point a smoking pistol on his Blackberry towards his Dad. It looked all the world like a real gun shooting his Dad. It sent me into a full blown panic attack. If I didn’t know about my own childhood gun trauma, I wouldn’t understand why I react a certain way when I’m triggered. Another example is that I wouldn’t wear a white wedding dress, because I had been defiled by the sexual abuse. I didn’t understand it at the time, but once I got the memories back, it all made sense.

Affect: Is when you feel feelings and you have no idea why. For example, you might be filled with sadness or rage for no apparent reason. You might cry easily, again for no apparent reason. As a result of what happened to me tonight, I am feeling tremendous sadness and powerlessness; and rage at the father whose response was “boys will be boys”. I’m feeling the feelings associated with my own childhood gun trauma; not the feelings of what happened tonight. If I didn’t know what happened to me, I wouldn’t have a framework for dealing with the emotions.

Senses: You might be triggered by something you see, hear, taste, touch or smell. For example, my family used Ivory bar soap when I was growing up, so I associate the smell with them. I can’t have it in my house, or use it if I’m at someone else’s house (well I can now, I just choose not to!). For example, there’s been a lot of it at the food bank lately and I get it for my son, but I don’t use any of it. Other people have told me they can’t eat anything white and creamy (rice pudding, tapioca pudding, ice cream . . . ) because of its obvious associations with semen. For a long time I couldn’t give or receive a hug from a man or a woman because I believed “if you touch me, I have to have sex with you.” I always avoided situations where people were hugging (and even now, when I have a context to put it in, I’m still often uncomfortable being touched).

Knowledge: is the conscious knowledge of the memories. For me, this was the last thing to come back and when it did, it explained so much, because I’d already had the experience with behaviour, affect and senses. It helped me believe my story.

So if you’re experiencing behaviour, affect or sensory triggers, you’re already well on your way to recovering your memories!

Finally, even though I had all of that, I still had trouble believing what I know to be true. I kept coming back to “maybe it didn’t happen”, because denial was a much easier place to be! I found this quote from the Bahá’í Writings really helpful in keeping me grounded in my truth:

Consequently, it has become evident that the four criteria stan­dards of judgment by which the human mind reaches its conclusions (senses, intellect, traditional or scriptural and inspiration) are faulty and inaccurate. All of them are liable to mistake and error in conclu­sions. But a statement presented to the mind, accompanied by proofs which the senses can perceive to be correct, which the faculty of rea­son can accept, which is in accord with traditional authority and sanc­tioned by the promptings of the heart, can be adjudged and relied upon as perfectly correct, for it has been proved and tested by all the standards of judgment and found to be complete. When we apply but one test, there are possibilities of mistake. This is self-evident and manifest. (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 255)

For me this is similar to the BASK model – it just goes a little further.

How have you unblocked your memories? Post your comments here:

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About The Author

Susan Gammage is a Bahá’í-inspired author, educator and researcher with a passion for finding ways to help people apply Bahá'í principles to everyday life situations so they can learn to "live the life". She has published hundreds of articles and many books and nothing gives her greater pleasure than working on a whole lot more. She is blessed to be able to live in one of the most beautiful parts of Canada.
To hire her as a life coach: https://susangammage.com/shop or to contribute to the costs of developing and maintaining the site:
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4 Comments

Leading up to remembering my own memories of abuse, I had a lot of signs and symptoms. I remember an intense heat that would come in waves in my legs (I went to the doctor thinking I was going through early menopause!). I had bizarre thoughts of wanting to suffer a violent attack “so I can have counselling”.

My memories were unblocked one morning. I woke up and an inner voice said “Pick up a pen and start writing”. I wrote and wrote and was surprised of the uncomfortable memories that came out. Part of me wanted to deny them, justify them, but I told myself “Write first, evaluate later”. I booked myself into a counsellor straight away. That was the (conscious) start of my healing journey.

Thanks for sharing! Those are great examples of memories coming back through senses (the waves of heat in your legs); affect (the thoughts); and knowledge (the writing).

Michael Hughes

November 23, 2014 at 1:35 am ·

I have looked through your website and read your wonderful insight into recovering childhood memories. I do not have any reason to believe that anything happened to me as a child; however I am sometimes very surprised at my reactions to certain things which is one of the many things that persuaded me to look into recovering childhood memories. I cannot remember anything at all before kindergarten and I believe most of what I remember about much of elementary school is just factual information like who my teachers were and other students names, rather than memories. Is it normal to not remember any of your early childhood like that? I’m 32 years old, by the way. I would just love to hear your insight on this and how I should proceed in my journey to recovering lost and repressed childhood memories. Hope all is well.

I think this is a question to take to science rather than religion. In the early years of recalling my own traumatic childhood, there was concern that I had made up the memories. Desperate to know the truth, and believing that the House of Justice had a direct line to God and would be able to tell me if I was making things up or if they really happened, I wrote to them and this is their reply:

Your therapist is also in the best position to assist you to distinguish between those events which have occurred, and any other impressions in your memory which may not be based on actual experiences. (From a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer, 22 December, 1992)

To a friend of mine with a similar background, they wrote:

Regarding your question about methods of healing which involve temporarily re-experiencing or remembering events, these are complex medical matters and as stipulated in the Teachings, believers should seek the best medical advice which is available and follow it. Experience seems to suggest that the healing process can often be a lengthy and stressful one requiring the close guidance and help of trained professionals. Advice given by well-meaning believers to the effect that you should seek to transcend psychological problems does not qualify as competent advice on what is essentially a medical issue. (From a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer, 23 October, 1994)

So from a religious perspective, we’re told to “seek the best medical advice (including therapy) which is available and follow it”.

From a scientific perspective you might also find these articles helpful:

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Note: The materials on this site reflect the current understanding of Susan Gammage from her experience in the Bahá’í community and as a Bahá’í-inspired researcher/author. They do not represent an official interpretation of the Bahá’í Writings. They are simply offered as an educational resource for Bahá’ís to consider as they strive to understand and implement the Writings into their lives, institutions and communities. Any questions about the application of certain quotes to your own particular situation should be directed to the Bahá’í institutions. Official websites include www.bahai.org (international); http://www.ca.bahai.org/ (Canadian) and http://www.bahai.us/ (American).